title: Molecular characterization of invasive and non-invasive Streptococcus pyogenes isolates from Romania.
abstract: In 2002, the Romanian National Reference Laboratory was invited to join the Strep-EURO project to study invasive Streptococcus pyogenes infections. During 2003 and 2004, a total of 33 isolates recovered from invasive disease were received from eight Romanian counties. For comparison, 102 isolates from non-invasive disease, as well as a collection of 12 old invasive strains (isolated between 1967 and 1980) were included. All isolates were characterized by several methods: T and emm typing, presence of the fibronectin-binding protein F1 gene (prtF1), serum opacity factor (sof), and superantigen (SAg) genes (speA, speB, speC, speF, speG, speH, ssa and smeZ). The recent invasive isolates exhibited 19 emm-types, of which emm1, emm81, emm76, emm49 and emm78 covered 57 % of the strains. Furthermore, multilocus sequence typing analysis revealed nine new sequence types, corresponding to emm types 1, 12, 49, 81, 92, 100, 106 and 119. The non-invasive isolates comprised 24 different emm types with a predominance of emm1 and 12; the old invasive strains were of eight emm types, of which four were unique for this group. All isolates harboured speB and speF; smeZ was detected in all invasive strains, except for the emm49 and emm81 isolates. The majority of isolates from carriers, and patients with pharyngitis were prtF1 positive, most of these (14 strains) being emm12. High tetracycline resistance rates were noted among both invasive and control isolates (54 % and 35 %, respectively), whereas macrolide resistance rates were low (3 % and 5 %, respectively). Active and continuing surveillance is required to provide an accurate assessment of the disease burden and to provide epidemiological data on the character of isolates in Romania.
authors.affiliation: Institute of Laboratory Medicine, Section of Medical Microbiology, Lund University, Lund, Sweden.
authors.forename: Bogdan
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Luca-Harari
authors.affiliation: National Institute of Research and Development for Microbiology and Immunology, Cantacuzino, Bucharest, Romania.
authors.forename: Monica
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Straut
authors.affiliation: National Institute of Research and Development for Microbiology and Immunology, Cantacuzino, Bucharest, Romania.
authors.forename: Silvia
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Cretoiu
authors.affiliation: National Institute of Research and Development for Microbiology and Immunology, Cantacuzino, Bucharest, Romania.
authors.forename: Maria
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Surdeanu
authors.affiliation: National Institute of Research and Development for Microbiology and Immunology, Cantacuzino, Bucharest, Romania.
authors.forename: Vasilica
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Ungureanu
authors.affiliation: German National Reference Center for Streptococci, Department of Medical Microbiology, University Hospital RWTH Aachen, Aachen, Germany.
authors.forename: Mark
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: van der Linden
authors.affiliation: Department of Clinical Microbiology and Immunology, Lund University Hospital (USIL), Lund, Sweden.
authors.forename: Aftab
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Jasir
mesh_terms: D018829:Adhesins, Bacterial / Q000235:genetics; D016521:Electrophoresis, Gel, Pulsed-Field; D006801:Humans; D008826:Microbial Sensitivity Tests; D017422:Sequence Analysis, DNA; D013297:Streptococcus pyogenes / Q000145:classification / Q000187:drug effects / Q000235:genetics* / Q000302:isolation & purification
chemical_list: D018829:Adhesins, Bacterial; C078635:fibronectin-binding proteins, bacterial